LIVA 32GB 2GB DDR3L RAM installed 32GB eMMC Storage

Pros: Cheap and easy to assemble mostly. See Cons

Cons: A truly frustrating device even for me and I’ve been building computers for 10 years. First, the actual assembly is easy and involves putting in the wireless card and installing a screw. Then you install the two wifi antennas and that’s easy. But then you have to get the incredibly tiny antenna leads hooked up to the miniscule jacks on the wireless board. And no, these aren’t the usual leads you’re used to on laptop wireless antennas and cards. No, these are perhaps half that size. I’m certainly no kid and wear glasses and I couldn’t even see the jacks on the board. Honestly this is an exercise in frustration that took almost an hour. It’s so frustrating you want to throw the whole thing into the trash and go out drinking until you can forget. It took me an hour to finally get something like the correct hookup. A magnifying glass would help but then you’d need three hands. If you have a kid around with young eyesight have them do this and save yourself a lot of frustration. Then you have to load windows 8.1. Windows 7 won’t work. Only 8.1. Ubuntu is supposed to work but I’m not into that so it was Windows 8.1. The only way to install the operating system is from a USB optical drive or a flash drive. I don’t have a USB optical drive so I made a bootable USB thumb drive using an older OCZ Diesel 4 Gig drive. Guess what? Wouldn’t work. The machine kept going into the BIOS with no hint of what was wrong. And there’s very little troubleshooting info on this device on the Internet. I thought It was defective but then I decided to try using another flash drive. What did I have to lose? I burned another bootable copy of Windows 8.1 on a Kingston 8 gig drive and this time it worked. I saw some hints on the Internet that this is a problem so if it happens to you try another flash drive or better yet use a USB optical drive.

Overall Review: The Liva actually runs Windows 8.1 tolerably well. Just make sure you have a powered USB hub because there are only 2 USB ports and you need one for the mouse and one for the keyboard. Considering that everything you want to install has to come on a USB flash drive that leaves you one USB port short. This is an early review. I just got done installing Windows and the drivers, which come a DVD and that you have to transfer to a flash drive to get installed. The Liva isn’t fast. It’s glacial compared to a reasonably new system but it works OK. I’m going to play with it some more tomorrow and see what happens but right now the frustration is wearing off and it looks cute sitting there, so small and innocent looking. Just remember those wireless antenna leads.

Pros: Everything besides wifi works well under Lubuntu 14.04.1 64-bit. And I mean right out of the box, no fiddling. XBMC plays 1080p content, even fairly demanding hi10p (10-bit) encodes, very well. Very smooth with no screen tearing to report. HD audio passthrough, namely DTS-HD MA, works great (if running XBMC from a desktop install, it is important to make it ignore PulseAudio, which doesn't support HD audio passthrough, by launching with the command "AE_SINK=ALSA xbmc" [obviously this command will change slightly when XBMC adopts the new name Kodi]). Netflix works well on this with the recent native HTML5 playback support through Chrome (with the appropriate workarounds). Desktop sounds come out over HDMI just fine if you use pavucontrol to set up pulseaudio to output through it rather than analog.

Cons: Wireless card currently doesn't work under 14.04.1 (without considerable effort, at least), but since luck has it that is the only user replaceable part in the whole setup, it is hardly a deal breaker, as you're not really stuck with it (nor is that card much liked by people using Windows, it seems). hi10p playback works great unless the bitrate gets up to around 35Mb/s, at which point it starts dropping frames (but you'll rarely, if ever, really encounter this). Actually, up to about 18Mb/s it looks like processor usage is almost at 100%, but when it gets above that I saw processor usage go down slightly, which I think was evidence of the processor speed ramping up on demand (bitrate spikes to around 31Mb/s this machine handled fine). Keep in mind hi10p is a special situation, as no graphics cards on the market are able to offload decoding of it, so it is completely dependent on the CPU, so don't expect the same frame dropping issues with most high bitrate files. Had to use VGA to see the BIOS and select the LiveUSB drive when originally installing. The on-board eMMC storage is fast enough to not get in the way of general usage, but is slow enough to cause problems with video playback in high bitrate scenes (same files play smoothly streaming over gigabit). Ethernet activity lights are a little brighter than necessary, so I cut tiny squares of duct tape to put over them, seems fine now. Ability to change/expand RAM and storage obviously would be nice. Without that, this won't likely become more than just a really good media streamer, which I'm okay with. The clear plastic protecting the wifi antenna connectors was unreasonably stubborn. Ended up having to cut through one of them to free the end without breaking it. VESA mounting option would have been very welcome.

Overall Review: I'm a bit surprised how much attention Windows8.1 is getting on this over Linux, and that much of the Linux reports are disconcerting. I'm happy to say I've had an overall positive experience with the LIVA running Lubuntu 14.04.1 64-bit. For some reason I had to originally boot using VGA, as over HDMI it would wake up the screen I was using but not show anything (I still don't see anything at POST time, but once Linux takes over everything shows up fine). I booted off of a LiveUSB without issue (in response to those that had to use an external CD drive). Really not sure what else to say. It is quiet, efficient, plays some demanding stuff, and I may well buy another one for similar media needs in another room. It is very likely supplanting my current home theater projector computer (Athlon X2 6000+ and GT630 nVidia card), and that I think is the best endorsement I can give it.

Pros: -Silent! -USB 3.0 -Gigabit network -Dual monitor support -Ubuntu (or Lubuntu) Just Works -100+ MB/sec writes to HDD attached via USB3 exposed as a Samba share. Plenty fast enough for streaming any video content.

Cons: It's not terribly powerful, but for a fileserver, it's fast enough. Keep the OS lean and it will do the job fine. 32GB MMC storage isn't much, but keep that in mind when choosing the OS, hence why I chose Lubuntu. For HTPC use, it really needs an IR sensor. Also some digital audio output e.g. SPDIF would be very nice as my receiver does not accept HDMI.

Overall Review: I got this on sale for $125 to replace a Windows 7 desktop server and I have to say, this has been a very pleasant experience. I installed Lubuntu and everything pretty much worked straight out of the gate. I did not attempt to get the wifi/bluetooth module working as I have a wired LAN and no bluetooth accessories. It's hosting a number of samba fileshares, runs Plex media server, and automatically downloads, catalogs and serves up fun stuff, all while connected to a VPN. CPU usage ranges from 15-100% depending on load, but I haven't seen any slowdown. Memory usage stays around 1.2GB out of the available 2GB. Overall, I am blown away by this little guy. He's quiet, uses very little electricity and has freed up my desk space and an entire server for other uses.

Pros: Affordable Small, dead silent, and low power Can install Linux Mint

Cons: 2 USBs Needs dummy plug to run headless. Weak wifi range Linux problems (expected)

Overall Review: I bought this to replace a power guzzling Plex pc and to get off my virtual pc subscription. I have it running 24/7 so the low power helps my electricity bill. I installed Linux Mint (it needs the 64-bit edition). Then I installed Plex and LAMP. There were quite a few complications, as expected but nothing I couldn't search for and fix. I used a couple of 100 Ohm resistors to simulate a monitor (google it; 75 Ohms recommended though). Then I just used VNC, ssh, and sftp to access the pc so I didn't need a dedicated monitor, keyboard or mouse to use it. Wifi didn't work right away but the guide I used to install linux mint covered that and it was fixed. Wifi signal was weak coming from one room down, so I just wired it to the router. It was small and didn't need a monitor anyway so this was no biggie. Plex worked well transcoding DVD quality mkv videos to my phone, chromcasted to the TV. I used an external hard drive to host the files. I was not able to test high quality video transcoding, but I don't suspect it will do as well. LAMP works well, though I wouldn't recommend it for anything higher than very light traffic. It works great for my needs and meets my expectations. All the cons were fixable for me. Though, of course, your expectations and situation may be different. It only has 2 USBs so you can't connect expandable storage if you're already using a mouse and keyboard. Also, I experienced weak wifi range if you can't have it wired, though it will probably be fine if it's in the same room as the router. Some people report only ~10GB free space after installing Ubuntu or Windows 8.1. Installing linux mint, I have about ~20GB of free space. Linux mint was made for low-spec PCs so that's probably the best linux distribution in my opinion. If you're not experienced in Linux, there's a lot to learn if you want to take this option. Lastly, if you want a device to stream videos, you might as well get a Chromecast. No point in spending $100+ if you just want to watch youtube and netflix. You can use Plex if you want to stream media from another pc to Chromecast. Can't post links, but simply google "liva linux mint" to get started.

Pros: Had some issues with the HDMI on device and contacted ECS support. ECS were very prompt, professional and helpful, they got me up and running very quickly and I could not be happier with this device. Running Ubuntu + Kodi. Seeing ECS tech support in action gives me great confidence in puchasing an ECS Product in future.

Cons: None

Pros: Fully featured, low-power PC... Am using these for Amateur Radio communications as well as audio/video streaming at home. Have installed Windows 8.1 and Mint Linux with no issues. Silent operation with no fans. ECS Customer Service is top notch... See note in cons...

Cons: The WiFi and Bluetooth antenna connectors are next to impossible to get connected to the board. They are very small and have to be aligned perfectly. Take your time and do not force them. I did not take my own advice the first time, and broke one of the connectors. Thankfully ECS was more than willing to send me another antenna. (at no cost even though it was my fault).

Overall Review: The first two units have been in service for over a month without issue... Just ordered five more for other projects...

Pros: Fast for my HTPC with Linux Mint

Cons: linux drivers for bluetooth not available yet and wi-fi is somewhat of a pain to get working.

Overall Review: I use this as my HTPC in my living room. XBMC works very well and so does streaming Big Screen Steam games from my gaming rig in my home office to the living room! This little thing works great!

Pros: Perfect device for an HTPC; Low power consumption; Quiet; Decodes HD content; Plenty fast running Mythbuntu 12.

Cons: Needs one more USB port; Hard to assemble wireless antennae; UEFI interface is somewhat annoying and limiting; Hard to open case after assembly; USB port for power cable seems a little weak

Overall Review: I am using two of these as MythTV frontends. Hard to beat the Christmas sale price of $110. Installed Ubuntu 12.2 to work with my 0.26.1 backend. Initially the HDMI audio did not work, but an upgrade of the Linux kernel to 3.16 fixed that. Connected to LAN via Ethernet cable. Have not tried WiFi or BT. Picked up a small 4-port USB hub for around $10 to augment the 2 USB ports. At just over $100, this thing is hands-down the best HTPC option I've ever seen.